This invention relates to digital data storage and compression and more particularly to a method of abstracting and compressing sampled data.
In process monitoring or other detection and recording systems, the availability of low-priced memory has made the task of acquiring and storage of information a relatively easy one. Very large quantities of data can be acquired and stored at low cost. Even so, the storage medium is finite and, when sampling rates are high, the limits of the system are reached at some point and old data must be purged. But there are many situations where the older data may be the most useful, at least as to certain characteristics such as maximum, minimum, average, standard deviation, catastropic events, etc.
It is the object of this invention to provide a method of abstracting and compressing digital data in a manner that preserves the most useful characteristics of the data but yet eliminates the need for vastly redundant data storage capability.